The Covid Diaries 70 – Wilton’s Music Hall: Virgil’s Aeneid // Tom Carradine’s London Songbook

A review of two evenings at Wilton’s Music Hall. In which I enjoy hearing some of the songs which would once have played here. And a completely different evening which shows how versatile these small spaces can be.

Finally! I’m In Wilton’s Music Hall!

Hooray! The irony of it is that I was living about a 10 minute walk from Wilton’s while it was closed, and now that it has reopened, I’ve moved to Brockley. But still a short Overground journey away, so I hope to be back frequently. Wilton’s announced a reopening season towards the end of last year and I pretty much bought ‘one of everything’. There have been more reschedulings than you could shake a stick at. But finally this week not one, but two, of my events took place! So exciting.

You first read about Wilton’s on the Salterton Arts Review blog when we were doing a Black history walk around Tower Hamlets. You can also read about the building’s history on their own website. Wilton’s started out as five houses. John Wilton turned them into a music hall in the 1860s, hoping to bring quality entertainment to the people of the East End. The music hall fell out of use and became a Methodist mission, before transforming back into a performance space. That makes it sound easy, but there was an awful lot of work, campaigning and fundraising involved.

Today, Wilton’s size and its location in Shadwell make it a pleasant and friendly venue. The staff are chatty, the building is endlessly photogenic (I also went to a wedding here once, fabulous venue), and its easy to get to. And importantly, the programme is really varied. There are poetry evenings, drag nights, singalongs (well, not quite under Covid), storytelling, circus arts, music, and the list goes on. Genuinely something for everyone. Wilton’s is a treasure, so I will keep supporting it by attending what I can. And on that note, on now to what I saw this week!

Virgil’s Aeneid: Lessons On Fleeing, Hope & Resilience

Poetry evenings are something I’m starting to get into, after An Evening With An Immigrant last year and now this one as well. I studied The Aeneid once upon on a time (don’t ask me to remember that far back though), so was intrigued by this ‘evening of poetry and discussion’ reflecting on an ancient work in light of contemporary refugee crises and displacement.

The evening by Poet In The City was well balanced. There was writer and academic Edith Hall who explained the context and importance of Virgil; poet and educator Laila Sumpton who talked about her work delivering creative writing programmes to asylum seeker and immigrant groups; and two poets who shared their work – Nick Makoha and Amineh Abou Kerech. And tying all of these threads together, actor Laura Hanna read excerpts from different translations of The Aeneid. Each speaker brought something different, but overall the connection of ‘fleeing, hope and resilience’ came through strongly. As well as the echoes through time of images like Icarus, the destruction of Troy… I wondered how much this was a Euro-centric (or Mediterranean-centric) approach, but then again London-based Ugandan poet Nick Mahoka had found plenty of rich connections to the antique source material.

Finishing with Mahoka was a stroke of genius. He is so gregarious that he brought the audience into the evening fully as active participants rather than observers. He is also very funny, which helps to draw people into his very intellectual and interconnected approach to poetry. But perhaps the stand-out of the evening was Amineh Abou Kerech. Her family fled Syria and spent four years in Egypt before arriving in the UK in 2016. Only a year later, Kerech won the Betjeman Poetry Prize. She shared some of her poems with us, full of a sense of home and loss. What a privilege to have been a part of this evening.

Tom Carradine’s London Songbook

From an evening that took us from the ancient world to now, to another which takes us firmly back to the glory days of Wilton’s as a music hall. Tom Carradine is, I’m sure he would agree, something of an eccentric. After a degree in biochemistry, he decided to pursue a career in music. And more specifically he has been entertaining people with Cockney sing-a-longs for a number of years.

Current rules do not permit singing for non-professionals (a slight nonsense but that’s the UK government for you), so this was more of an evening of entertainment. Carradine sang a selection of London-themed songs with a narrative thread to tie the evening together. So it was educational as well as fun – teaching us a bit about music hall history and (East) London culture along the way.

I enjoyed how varied the audience was. On my left I had an older couple, probably part of the last generation who will remember these songs as part of their local and family life. They were certainly wishing they could sing along. To my right there was a couple who, like me, knew hardly any of the songs but enjoy live performance and had a great time anyway. And I was enjoying imagining Wilton’s in full swing in its heyday – probably some of the same songs, but a much less well-behaved audience!

Carradine pops up at Wilton’s from time to time as well as other venues in London and beyond, so check out his website if you are intrigued and would like to attend a Cockney sing-a-long when rules permit!

Virgil’s Aeneid: 4/5
Tom Carradine’s London Songbook: 4/5
Implementing Covid measures: 4.5/5

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